French police bust Channel people-smuggling ring

PARIS: French police have busted a major people-smuggling ring that has been sending migrants to Britain in dinghies, seizing more than a dozen boats and 700 life jackets in a raid, French officials said on Thursday.

The ring, run by Iraqi Kurdish migrants, had a logistics hub in Lille, a northern French city about 100-km from the Channel beaches around Calais used for crossings. Three Iraqi men have been charged, along with three French suspects after their arrest on Monday. Police discovered "a real factory supplying nautical equipment" in Lille, Xavier Delrieu, the head of Ocriest, the French agency battling illegal migration said.